Painting Quotes - Page 26

Since a true knowledge of nature gives us pleasure, a lively imitation of it, either in poetry or painting, must produce a much greater; for both these arts are not only true imitations of nature, but of the best nature.

Painting is like being a lawyer and attacking a corporation.

But, as sculpture and painting are gifts of God, what I insist on is, that both shall be used purely and lawfully, that gifts which the Lord has bestowed upon us, for His glory and our good, shall not be preposterously abused, nay, shall not be perverted to our destruction.

There are different kinds of concentration required to make a painting, different kinds of being present.

You have the 20th century wrapping up and everything is moving at this breakneck speed? And then, painting is still walking. It's just a very human activity that takes time.

I think you do kind of slip into a trance when you look at a painting. At least I do.

I want to assassinate painting.

I feel like I have to avoid certain thrift store-isms, having been known for the thrift store paintings. It's like I have to not paint that way.

Even with painting, even abstract paintings, you need the incoming of, light on the canvas.

Do console your poor friend, who is so troubled to see his paintings so miserable, so sad, next to the radiant nature he has before his eyes!

Painting is... a richer language than words... Painting operates through signs which are not abstract and incorporeal like words. The signs of painting are much closer to the objects themselves.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.

When I paint figures it's never the idea of painting the beauty of the figure, it is using the figure to get across how I feel.

I hardly ever stretch the canvas before painting.

In my view, photography and painting really share one history. The influences that work on one, work on the other.

Artists with a capital 'A' are at ease working in all areas of art, whether it is a contemporary abstract painting or work requiring methods and techniques of the Renaissance Masters.

It is far easier to debate about realistic painting than to paint one.

I don't look at the work of my contemporaries very much; I tend to look at pictures by dead artists. It's much easier to get near their paintings.

To be a painter now is to be part of a very small, endangered species.

A painting is finished when the subject comes back, when what has caused the painting to be made comes back as an object.

A poem is like a painting.

The picture that approaches sculpture nearest Is the best picture.

I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that feeling into painting.

What's so astonishing about not understanding? There are so many things in art, beginning with art itself, that one doesn't understand. A painter doesn't see everything that he has put in his painting.

Never ruin a good painting with the truth.